title: The interaction of gesture, intonation, and eye-gaze in proto-imperatives.
abstract: In the present study we investigate the production of gesture, intonation, and eye-gaze within the proto-imperative behaviour of one English child aged 1;0 to 1;7. The study is based on the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the three behaviours. The results indicate a shift from reaching gestures to points, and from rising terminal pitch contours to non-rising contours. The analysis also highlights changes in eye-gaze to the co-participant over time. In addition we identify a significant relationship between pitch contour and gesture type within the sample, with points being more closely associated with non-rise intonation than reaching gestures. We suggest that the changes in proto-imperative behaviour signal a shift in the underlying representation of the function from a request for help to a demand for a particular object, and that this development paves the way for the subsequent conventional linguistic expression of the imperative function.
authors.affiliation: University of Manchester.
authors.forename: Thea
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Cameron-Faulkner
mesh_terms: D002663:Child Language; D005133:Eye Movements; D005260:Female; D005868:Gestures; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007804:Language Development; D008037:Linguistics; D009633:Nonverbal Communication; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D014706:Verbal Learning; D014741:Video Recording; D014825:Vocabulary